Savages Recruit Page 5

  “So this is your fault,” she said accusingly. “You’re the reason I’m here.”

  “Technically the Bulgarians are the reason you’re here,” Ethan argued in his defense.

  “What?” Zora frowned. “What Bulgarians?”

  Ethan clammed up quickly, clearly aware that he’d put not one, but both of his feet in his mouth. “You should ask Savage,” he said, turning back to the computer and tapping away at it as if there was something terribly important he suddenly needed to do.

  “Maybe later,” Zora growled. Her good mood had dissipated almost entirely. She was so tired of the secrets. All she wanted to do was drink. The little taste she’d had before hadn’t sated her desire for a drink, it had only whetted it. Without the slightest compunction she reached under the desk and swiped Ethan’s flask.

  “Hey! That’s mine,” Ethan protested.

  She shrugged. “I’m sure there’s more where this came from, right?”

  “Well yeah, but…”

  “But nothing. You got me stuck in this place. I reckon this is the least you can do for me,” Zora said, slipping the flask into her pocket.

  “Be careful with it,” Ethan warned her, quickly giving up on any chance of getting the flask back.

  “Don’t worry about me, just try not to tell on me if Savage comes by, okay?” With a smirk set on her features, Zora headed out of the data center and back towards her room. She looked over her shoulder the whole way, half expecting Savage to pop out somewhere, but she managed to get back to the sanctuary of her private room without running into anyone at all. The compound was vast and there were far more places in it than there were people to be in them.

  Taking the precaution of slipping into the en suite, Zora sat on the toilet, uncapped the flask and drank deeply. It burned as it went down, but it burned so good. She downed half the vessel before she started to feel a little bit queasy and hid the rest of it behind the toilet cistern.

  Standing up was an interesting affair. The alcohol that had been pooling somewhere in her legs went straight to her head. It had been a while since she’d had a drink and the brew was strong, real strong. She stumbled out of the bathroom and crashed onto the bed on her back, giggling to herself. Now this was a good time and a damn good buzz. Determined to enjoy the brief moment of levity, Zora quickly lost herself in the twin pleasures of watching television and eating anything that came to hand.

  Later on, the door of her room opened. She had no idea when it was precisely, at some point she’d fallen asleep amidst crumbs and when she woke up it was only because she was being shaken awake by Savage. “Zora, are you okay?” His expression was one of pure concern, until she stirred, then he sniffed and his demeanor changed instantly. “You’re drunk.”

  “Yup,” Zora giggled gleefully, stretching as she returned to consciousness. There was nothing better than waking up and still being a little bit buzzed. It was like a bonus from the alcohol fairy.

  Savage frowned furiously. “How?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Zora taunted him. She watched him glower all the more at her flippant response. “I can almost see the smoke coming out of your ears,” she laughed.

  “Smoke is going to be rising off your backside before this is over,” he promised.

  “Go ahead,” Zora lurched her hindquarters off the bed and gyrated her hips at him. “Spank me all you want, big boy,” she slurred.

  He looked at her with something like disgust. “Not whilst you’re like this. You won’t feel it. Later, when you feel every lash.”

  “Lash? Gonna spank me with your eyes?”

  “With a tawse,” he informed her, folding his arms over his chest as he spoke. His jaw was clenched so tight she was surprised he could speak at all.

  “What’s a toorrsee?” Zora giggled as she formed the strange word with her mouth.

  “You’ll know the answer to that soon enough,” he said grimly, looking around the room.

  “You’re such a downer,” Zora sighed, dropping her hips down to the bed. “I did what you wanted me to do.”

  “I wanted you to learn code, not drink yourself stupid.”

  Zora rolled over on her back and began spewing lines of code towards the ceiling. When she was done, she looked over at Savage with a triumphant grin. “You mean that code? That code I totally know?”

  He didn’t reply, but that didn’t bother her, she just pointed her finger at herself. “You know who… you know what I am?”

  A muscle in his jaw ticked, but he responded to her question. “What or who are you?”

  “A drunken master. Like Bruce Lee.”

  “No,” he shook his head emphatically. “You’re a drunken brat and I’m going to tear strips off your hide when you sober up.”

  “You can’t be angry at me. I did what you wanted!” Zora protested.

  “This is not what I wanted,” Savage said as he walked over to her drawers. She wondered what he was doing until he pulled the top drawer out and dumped the contents onto the bed next to her. Her panties cascaded onto the coverlet, followed by tops, then pants. When he didn’t find the alcohol in any of the dresser drawers, he opened the wardrobe and pulled everything out of there too. He had an expression of stern determination on his face that Zora found rather amusing. She should have been scared, but she was enjoying the thrill of playing cat and mouse far too much to truly care.

  “Off the bed,” he ordered curtly. She didn’t move fast enough and was forced to scramble when he picked the side of it up and turned it over. In an instant Zora’s clothing and sheets were tossed into a large jumble on the floor.

  In short order all the cupboards were emptied, the television had been switched off and removed from the wall, the fridge had been pulled away from its slot in the counter and checked. Zora slid down the wall and sat on the ground, watching him silently as he tore her room apart. With every failed attempt to find the source of the alcohol, he grew more irritated. Finally he went into the en suite and she heard the sound of the top of the toilet being removed. Then all went silent until he re-entered the room holding the flask. “Always the last place you look, huh?” Zora tried a lame attempt at humor, but it failed miserably. In the aftermath of her rude awakening her buzz was almost completely gone, leaving her feeling cold and concerned.

  “Where did you get this?” He snapped the question.

  Zora shook her head. “I’m not telling.”

  “You will,” he growled, striding over to her. She cowered away when he reached for her, but he didn’t hit her, he simply grasped her upper arm and guided her up to her feet. “Back to detox for you.”

  Minutes later, Zora found herself alone and locked away in the same dull white room she’d occupied when she first arrived at the compound. “This is not good,” she said to herself as she sat down on the thin mattress, fighting a wave of nerve induced nausea. Savage had been livid, no he had been more than livid, he had been super furious. He’d hardly spoken a word to her, but his silence had held a heavy menace. Zora’s attempts to sleep her anxieties away failed miserably and she spent a long night tossing and turning uncomfortably.

  The next morning, Savage arrived looking thoroughly merciless as he stepped through the door clad in a black t shirt that clung to his muscular frame and black tactical pants. In his hand he held what looked like a leather strap with a wooden handle. Nursing a hangover, Zora groaned when she saw it. She was sitting cross-legged on the middle of the bed, her head in her hands. She covered her eyes when she saw his stern face and the implement he’d threatened her with. He didn’t look angry anymore, he just looked determined. For some reason, determination scared her more than anger. “You’re going to beat me now?”

  “Spank, not beat,” he corrected her. “You know why, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” she groaned, burying her face further in her hands.

  His voice was calm, but firm. “Tell me.”

  Flushing with embarrassment at having to recount
her crimes, Zora muttered as quickly as possible. “Because I got drunk.”

  “And because you wouldn’t tell me where you got the alcohol from.”

  She lifted her head and looked at him. “That’s not fair.”

  He sat on the end of the bed, the tawse held casually in one hand, the other hand resting on his knee. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not going to get someone else in trouble because of something dumb I did. It’s not their fault.”

  He considered her answer for all of a millisecond before dismissing it. “That’s admirable, but defying me is going to earn you more punishment,” he said briskly. “Let’s get this started. Stand up please, Ms Matthews.” She stood up. She didn’t want to stand up, but she also didn’t want to be accused of further defiance. “Good,” he nodded. “Now lower your pants and put yourself over my knee.”

  Zora gawked at the very idea of meekly pulling her pants down so that he could thrash her. Her mouth opened and shut wordlessly as she tried to work out a way of the situation. His dark eyes bored into hers. “Now, Ms Matthews.”

  She broke out into a cold sweat and shook her head. “I can’t,” she squeaked.

  “You can.”

  “No, I can’t.” Her voice held a note of panic and her hands began to tremble. It was one thing to be pulled over his lap, to be a passive recipient of his discipline, but quite another to participate in it herself. He was demanding something she couldn’t give.

  “You can, Zora.” He spoke softly. It was not what she expected, she expected him to start barking orders at her. It would have been east to resist shouting, easy to grow aggressive in response, but he seemed to know that.

  “I don’t want to get hit,” she whimpered, looking down at her feet as her eyes filled with tears.

  “Then don’t misbehave next time.” He reached for her and pulled her closer to him by her hips. The touch of his strong hands was oddly intimate, and she was glad when he guided her over his lap without asking her to do it herself again. It was a small mercy and she was grateful for it.

  “This is going to hurt,” he said, tugging down her pants and panties in one swift movement. The warning did not make it any easier. She lay tensely in place as he draped the split leather of the tawse over her cheeks, then pulled it away. With a quick snapping motion it was back, laying a hell fire sting across her sensitive skin. Zora shrieked as it landed, arching her back with the agony it caused. He held her down firmly, his forearm across her shoulders and repeated the treatment over and over, lashing her poor bare bottom until she knew she couldn’t stand it anymore. He didn’t speak or lecture, he didn’t yell and he didn’t comfort her with kind words, he simply spanked her over and over again. She had no idea how many times the tawse rose and fell, she only knew that it was falling on the same welted skin over and over again and with every new stroke the pain peaked at new heights.

  She began blubbering for forgiveness, promising that she would never do such a thing again. She said everything she could think of to stop the spanking, but none of it did any good. He must not have a soul, not the slightest bit of sympathy anywhere in his body. He must hate her, really hate her, she reasoned in her pain addled state. Eventually she simply became limp over his lap, the hard ridges of his muscled thighs pressing against her stomach and hips as she sobbed.

  When he finally stopped many, many lashes later, cessation of the spanking was of small consolation. The fire of pain he’d built was still burning, and though she heard him say something, she couldn’t make it out through her tears. When he tried to stand her up, her legs failed her and she crumpled to the ground crying as if her heart was breaking. Her freedom, her autonomy, all the good in her world had been taken away, and it had been replaced by a heartless regime and a man who didn’t care how much he hurt her as long as she did as she was told.

  She curled up into the fetal position, crying so hard that it was difficult to breathe. He was still saying something, but she could not comprehend it. When his arms reached for her again she squealed and cowered away, afraid that he would beat her more. He did not hit her again though, he picked her up and placed her on his lap where he held her, gently stroking her hair.

  “Come on Zora, it wasn’t that bad,” he murmured, shifting her slightly in his arms. His voice was softer than she’d heard it before, he almost sounded like a different man altogether. She looked up between the wisps of tear wet hair that had stuck across her face and saw him looking down at her with genuine concern on his stern features. She sniffed then coughed as her tears threatened to half choke her. He was wrong, it was that bad. Her face crumpled as tears began to fall once more.

  “Hey, come on little lady,” Savage said, brushing the hair out of her eyes gently. “Tell me why you are so upset. I know it hurts, but it doesn’t hurt that bad.”

  Caught off guard by what almost sounded like a term of endearment, Zora stopped crying enough to explain herself. “You hit me and you liked it. You hate me,” she said, her lower lip trembling as the tears threatened to overwhelm her again.

  Savage frowned, and for a moment she was afraid she had angered him. “You think I spanked you because I hate you? What did we say at the beginning?”

  “Nothing,” she said, entirely forgetting everything that had happened before she was spanked.

  Savage persisted in the face of her discipline induced insomnia. “What did you tell me when I asked you why you were going to be spanked?”

  “Because I got drunk and wouldn’t tell you how,” Zora mumbled.

  “That’s right,” Savage said. “Because you did something you knew you were absolutely not allowed to do. This spanking was the consequence. Don’t you dare take it into your head that this is some beating you received because I don’t like you. This is not personal, it is what you get when you break the rules. Understand?”

  She nodded as his eyes bored into her. “Yessir,” she whispered.

  “Good,” he said firmly, standing her up. This time she found her feet without any trouble at all. “Pants up, Ms Matthews,” he ordered. Quickly she bent down and pulled her pants up, blushing as she realized how many times Savage had seen the most intimate areas of her body. He probably knew her body almost as well as some of her ex boyfriends did.

  Savage stood up from the bed and walked around her whilst she rubbed her bottom, his hands clasped behind his back. “I am a firm believer in discipline, Ms Matthews. Discipline is something you’ve clearly lacked in your life. You should know that it is never done out of anger, or out of a personal desire for revenge. It is done to provide swift and memorable consequences.” He stopped and looked at her with just a hint of a smile playing around his lips. “Would you say that your little encounter with the tawse just now was memorable, Ms Matthews?”

  Zora nodded, her hands still stuck down the back of her pants. She didn’t know how she would sit with her bottom so sore. “Very memorable, Captain Savage,” she said softly.

  “Do I have your word that you will not imbibe any more alcohol without my permission?”

  Zora hesitated, but when his expression hardened, she nodded quickly. “Okay, I won’t. It’s not fair, but I won’t.”

  He nodded. “It is not about what is fair, but what is good for you.”

  As her misery faded, some of her self possession began to return. “And presumably, what is not good for the Bulgarians.”

  Savage stopped short. “Who told you about the Bulgarians?” Zora did not reply, but she did not need to. It was clear from the expression on Savage’s face that he was making sense of the situation. “Ethan mentioned them, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Zora nodded. “He did.”

  “And he gave you the alcohol too.”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to lie to me?” Savage asked the question in dangerously soft tones.

  “I stole it from him,” Zora explained. It was close enough to the truth, there was only a fine line between theft and what she’d done to Ethan
.

  “I see,” he said. She needn’t have worried about him buying that story. Clearly he had no trouble believing that she was a thief.

  “So what about these Bulgarians?” Zora prompted.

  Savage looked at her, but she saw from the closed expression on his face that she was not going to get an answer. He stepped towards the door and she knew that it was going to be another one of those many lingering questions that surrounded her stay. She was quickly growing tired of the mysteries. Apparently he thought she didn’t deserve answers, all she deserved was pain and recrimination. “Fine, just go,” she said bitterly. “See you the next time you want to hit me.”

  He stopped by the door and looked over his shoulder at her. “You’ll get your answers when you’re ready for them.”

  “And in the meantime? What am I supposed to do?”

  “Behave yourself.” He left quickly, closing the door behind him and bolting it too. Yet again Zora was locked away by herself, confused and hurt. Frustration overwhelmed her and she hurled herself against the sheet metal door, kicking and punching and swearing up a storm of rage. She battered her frail flesh against the solid door until she was so tired she could no longer lift her arms, then she collapsed onto the bed, feeling more miserable and alone than before.

  Chapter Five

  Savage paced back and forth in his office, his brow furrowed. Zora was proving more complicated and difficult to deal with than he’d imagined. He’d counted on discipline as a means of taming her, but every time he spanked her he seemed to make things worse. Her sobbing cries still echoed in his head from the last time he’d been forced to take her in hand and in his mind’s eye he could see the look of disappointment on her face as he left her alone afterward. His plan to get her to a point where she’d trust him and be receptive to learning the full truth about her situation was quickly unraveling. Her stubborn resistance made it difficult to get through to her and he did not like the idea of resorting to ever more extreme measures.

  “Dammit,” he swore to himself. This was not supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to care, wasn’t supposed to get attached, but he was starting to do both. For all her negative traits, Zora was brighter and braver than most. She’d been wrenched out of her comfort zone and subjected to what she considered harsh discipline and it had not cowed her in the slightest.